A Coventry woman was away celebrating her father’s 90th birthday when the family occasion was ruined by a call telling her that her home had been broken into.

Burglar James Beard had cut through part of a back door surrounding a cat flap to crawl in before taking 15 bottles of alcohol worth around £300 and a holdall.

But he was arrested after a spot of his blood was found on the door, and at Warwick Crown Court he pleaded guilty to the burglary of the house in Earlsdon Avenue South, Coventry.

Beard, aged 46, of Barnstaple Court, Milton Keynes, who said he was staying with friends in Coventry at the time, was jailed for 41 weeks.

Prosecutor Ian Windridge said in September last year the householders went away to Yorkshire for a family celebration to mark the wife’s father’s 90th birthday.

Warwick Crown Court

They had arranged for friends to pop in twice a day to feed their cats – and everything was in order on the morning of September 6.

But when the friends returned that afternoon they found a section of the back door around a cat flap had been enlarged, there was a broken bottle of wine on the kitchen floor, and the house had been searched.

In all 15 bottles of alcohol had been stolen, together with a canvas holdall.

How was he caught?

A spot of blood on the cat flap and a fingerprint on the wine bottle led to Beard being identified, but when he was arrested he declined to be interviewed.